Metabolic pathway for the universal fluorescent recognition of tumor cells

Quantification of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood samples from cancer patients is a non-invasive approach to monitoring the status of the disease. Most of the methods proposed in the recent years are phenomenological and rely on the use of antibodies labelled with fluorophores, magnetic particles, or immobilized on surfaces to capture the CTCs. Herein, we designed and optimized a method that employs a glucose analogue labelled with a fluorophore which takes advantage of the different metabolic pathways of cancer cells to discern them from normal ones. Notably, we demonstrate that fluorescence signal in tumor cells can be greatly maximized by applying hyperoxia conditions without damaging the cells. These results are demonstrated by means of confocal fluorescence and flow-cytometry measurements in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) extracted after Ficoll of human blood samples and spiked with a known concentration of MCF-7 tumor cells.